The Australian government is about to deliberate on the combat management system (CMS) for the navy’s future frigates. In the mix are Saab Australia’s 9LV, which is already working well on the RAN’s Anzac class …
Debate: "Policy, guns and money"
In February 2016, Defence said it would produce a ‘periodically updated’ online version of its Integrated Investment Program (PDF) to ‘ensure industry has access to current information’. More than 16 months later, we can …
Australia has historically taken a stop-start approach to naval shipbuilding, investing in a mixture of domestic- and foreign-sourced warships at uneven increments. The current Australian government is planning to invest tens of billions of dollars …
Everyone agrees that we should, whenever possible, buy military equipment based closely on existing designs rather than new ones. Doing so results in lower costs, lower risks and quicker delivery. So why aren’t we going …
I had the good fortune to be in Perth last week as a speaker at the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Defence Conference. The ‘take home’ messages of my presentation were: the government has …
The government’s decision to pursue multi-decade domestic ship and submarine building programs sits oddly with decades of economic reform. Successive governments have striven to maintain competition in the Australian economy, and for good reason. …
For the past decade, successive prime ministers have been grappling with the question of how best to organise the Australian government to face a widening array of oft-interconnected national security issues. Now, with a shifting …
Just as knowing what Santa is going to bring you takes some of the fun out of Christmas morning, last night’s budget was pretty unexciting from a defence perspective. With one small wrinkle, the government …
It has been less than two years since The Strategist provided a new Defence Minister with an incoming brief, but it’s already time to update that for the new incumbent. And that reflects an unhealthy …
At first glance, the 2015 Budget was a very good one for Defence. Funding will grow to $32.1 billion next financial year, representing a 4.2% real year-on-year increase. And the much-heralded 2% of GDP target finally …
Not since at least the end of the Cold War has it been so easy to paint a disturbing picture of the global strategic landscape. Ukraine’s sovereignty has been trashed by Russia. Large swaths of …
Commissioned in September 2014 under a $2.5 million contract, the RAND report Australian’s Naval Shipbuilding Enterprise: Preparing for the 21st Century was released on 16 April 2015. The government says it’s developing an ‘enterprise-level Naval Shipbuilding …